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Wednesday, 7 March 2012

A gay rights first: Protection from Employment Discrimination, 1972

"East Lansing led the nation in local legislation that protected gay employees against discrimination. Forty years later, the city celebrates."

by Lawrence Cosentino

Two score years ago, after hearing from an angry resident who didn’t want to pay the city $11 for mowing his vacant lot and before taking up the matter of an abandoned easement, the East Lansing City Council made national human rights history.

On March 7, 1972, the Council voted to “employ the best applicant for each vacancy on the basis of his qualifications for the job and without regard to race, color, creed, national origin, sex or homosexuality.”

The modest personnel rule became a national landmark in the history of gay and lesbian rights.

At a ceremony Tuesday, East Lansing’s City Council was scheduled to proclaim itself as “the first community in the United States to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.”"